“I am looking for the most creative, knowledgeable and experienced ‘Car Guy’ in the world who knows & lives cutting edge car design…knows racing, custom cars, etc..& loves cars! He/She also loves technology but above all is a big time visionary. You know this guy?”

That was it. Two tweets from Gilbert dated Jan. 5, that had the chair of Quicken Loans, which is always looking to hire more people in areas such as marketing and information technology, asking to find some kind of mysterious car guru.

"Gilbert, the Quicken Loans chairman, Cleveland Cavaliers owner and major investor in downtown Detroit real estate and start-up companies, doesn't have a detailed vision or proposal yet, but he said, 'I would think it should be downtown. You could build something as big as an Epcot Center," the 300-acre theme park at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

'It could be something of that magnitude,' Gilbert added, encompassing the past, present and future of the automobile, with opportunities to drive cool vehicles on paved tracks and off-road courses. 'It's just endless what you could do.'"

The car guru Gilbert is looking for (and apparently has yet to find), he told Walsh, would be based in Detroit and tasked with “fleshing out some of these ideas and working with others.”

Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford tells Walsh:

"'We agree, it would be cool to have something big like that in Detroit,' Ford said. 'The question is, 'What exactly is it? What does it look like? And what would our contribution (from Ford) be to it?' A lot of our history is already in the Henry Ford' museum complex in Dearborn."

Walsh notes that a recent visit to Mercedes-Benz World near London was “crazy-fun,” and wonders aloud why the Motor City, the self-proclaimed automotive capital of the world, does not have something similar to the German automaker’s attraction, which even offers test drives of supercars and offroad vehicles to attendees.

Penske, the legendary owner of the Penske Racing empire, noted that all three Detroit automakers should be involved in such a project. "I think a key thing, given the competitive juices with the Big Three, it can't be one or the other," Penske told Walsh.

Automotive blog Jalopnik took note of the talk, and added that BMW’s Munich headquarters and Mercedes World could be sources of inspiration, while throwing in a jab at American automakers:

"Much as Detroit has had nothing to match German cars for the past few decades (recent years excluded), Detroit has had nothing to match these German car centers."

But what about AutoWorld, the theme park that was already attempted in Flint?

"Plagued with operating problems and static attractions such as a three-story, V-6 engine, the $80-million theme park closed its doors in January 1985, later reopening for holidays and other special occasions before finally being demolished in 1997."

Wollburg then lays out a vision for Detroit’s would-be auto theme park, replete with creative attractions and thrilling rides, such as “The Big Three,” in which Chevy, Ford and Chrysler-branded cars race head-to-head against each other on a track.

Gilbert had this to say about the ill-fated AutoWorld Monday on Twitter: "'Autoworld' (the failed 80's Flint car attraction)as precedent why a world-class Epcot-like car attraction in Detroit would fail? Silliness.”

He added shortly thereafter: “A Sub-shop failed in Flint in 1984.Good thing the guys who planned a 37,881 store 'Subway' chain saw that & aborted all of their plans...smh.” (For those of you unfamiliar with popular internet acronyms, “smh” = “shaking my head”).

In any case, Gilbert told Walsh, the Woodward Dream Cruise, seen as a massive success since launching in 1995, grew organically.

"The problem becomes, when everybody looks through the prism of spreadsheets and return-on-investment, which are phony ways to measure business and wealth and what you're going to create in the future, you can't rationalize and justify it," Gilbert said.

What do you think? Could an automotive theme park become a reality in the Motor City? Or are there too many obstacles in the road? Let us know in the comments section below.